I'm sure the final paragraph of Pt. 1 got the attention, and ire, of some. So why not use it as a starting pointfor Pt. 2.

During the June 10th Longmont City Council meeting, and this goes to the previous "truly ignorant comments" reference I made, Councilmember Sean McCoy said about Twin Peaks Mall owner and redeveloper Panattoni " we have a willing owner, but we have a very inexperienced owner." Sorry if that was one long sentence, but the inclusion of "ignorant", "inexperienced", and Sean McCoy was key. I know I've been hard on this guy with his style of speech, but this was a prepared and thought out slam against this corporation. And it was a fairly misinformed comment, as I'll show below.

Regardless of how ignorant this comment makes one of our representatives appear, the bigger problem is that he's willing to throw up against the wall this misinformation hoping it might stick. Of course, there will be those that will lap up this nonsense as the red meat they occasionally require, free thinkers that they are, NOT. But it just lowers the bar even further of what is acceptable behavior in and out of council meetings. Whatever helps the cause, right?

Perhaps this new thing called the Internet is still unknown in some councilmembers households, but a quick check of www.panattoni.com shows that they've done a little more than just Harvest Junction here in Longmont, a project in itself that isn't all that small. And a fairly recent project at that, or did Mr. McCoy miss that? I could see how Lowes and Best Buy on our newest boulevard could be overlooked.

But here are some other Retail projects of Panattoni: Piemonte at Ontario Center, Ontario, CA - Oak Valley Shopping Center, Beaumont, CA - and Raley's Shopping Center, Elk Grove, CA. They did these Office projects too: Gold Pointe Corporate Center, Sacramento, CA - Cedar Ridge Business Park, Southlake, TX - Beltway 8 Corporate Center, Houston, TX - and the CalSTRS (that's California State Teachers Retirement System) Headquarters. Flex projects include: Cornelius Pass Corporate Center, Hillsboro, OR - Broomfield Corporate Center, Broomfield, CO - and Laguna West Business Center, Elk Grove, CA. And there's Industrial projects, too: Plainfield Business Park, Indianapolis, IN - iPort 12, Carteret, NJ - and Rainier Park of Industry, Sumner, WA.

I could see how they could be viewed as "inexperienced".

On their partial client list, here are some names Mr. McCoy probably has never heard of: Ace Hardware, ADT, Allstate Insurance, Amazon.Com, American Red Cross, AutoZone, Ball Aerospace, Bank of America, Blue Shield, DeVry University, ETrade, Fidelity Title, Hartford Insurance, ITT Technical Institute, MITRE Corporation, Raytheon, Snap-On Tools, Wachovia Bank, and the list goes on and on.

So how does Mr. McCoy's experience and clients compare? Normally I wouldn't ask this, but he opened this door with his ridiculous comment. It took all of a few minutes of internet surfing to find that information. If Mr. McCoy can't put much serious thought and effort into this elected position, maybe he should just stick to pointless pontificating and abstain from all serious discussions or voting.

©2008 Chris Rodriguez/Longmont Advocate LLC
(Chris Rodriguez is a Longmont resident, and the publisher and broadcaster of Longmont Advocate, a community website and podcast that raises local issues to increase public awareness and interest)